One of 3 Filipinos can’t live without cell phones–survey

NEARLY a third of urban Filipinos claim not to be able to live without their mobile phones, according to a survey on the digital and media habits of consumers.

The Ipsos Media Atlas Philippines Nationwide Urban 2011-2012 survey results showed 30 percent of the Philippine urban population nationwide saying that mobile phones are necessities in life and 21 percent saying they plan to use their mobile phones more often.

"With the multi-functionality of mobile phones, Filipinos say that aside from TV, it’s their mobile phones that they can’t live without,” Steve Garton, executive director of Ipsos Business Insights, said at a presentation yesterday.

Ipsos Media Atlas Philippines, which is now on its sixth year, used 8,000 computerassisted telephone interviews and face-toface interviews.

Other uses

Mobile phones are important for communication, but urban Filipinos also use them for games (22 percent), as digital camera (25 percent) and MP3 or audio player (23 percent), Garton said.

The survey also showed that while access to the Internet has been increasing in the Philippines, it has not made other traditional media obsolete, which Garton attributed to Filipinos engaging in multi-tasking.

Carole Sarthou, Ipsos managing director said that the trend also showed how the different media correlate to each other.

Complementary

“They complement each other. For example, something in print can push people to go online or something they see online can push people to look for its print counterpart,” said Sarthou.

According to the survey, 52 percent of the urban population accessed the internet in 2011 to 2012, from 32 percent in 2007 to 2008; 99 percent accessed free TV in 2011 to 2012, from 97 percent in 2007 to 2008 and; 29 percent accessed the newspaper in 2011 to 2012, from 36 percent in 2007 to 2008.

Further, 72 percent accessed FM radio in 2011 to 2012, from 69 percent in 2007 to 2008; 63 percent accessed cable TV in 2011 to 2012, from 51 percent in 2007 to 2008; 28 percent accessed AM radio in 2011 to 2012, from 36 percent in 2007 to 2008 and; 21 percent accessed magazines in 2011 to 2012, from 28 percent in 2007 to 2008.

The survey also showed that visiting social networking websites is the top online activity among urban Filipinos (76 percent), followed by e-mail and chat (71 percent), information and search (48 percent), watching video (38 percent) and downloading or uploading (35 percent).

Facebook dominates all other websites, but users of Google and YouTube are increasing, according to the survey.

When asked about websites visited in the past seven days, 90 percent said Facebook, 69 percent said Google and 69 percent said YouTube.